Questions about Very Low Quality flags

Question

1. Is there such a thing as an autoflag for Very Low Quality (VLQ) questions or answers? If so, how does it work?

2. What is the difference between flagging an answer as VLQ, downvoting it, and writing a comment to let the author know about the problem? In other words, I'm trying to find out the recommended best practice procedure.

3. Similar, but for flagging a low quality question, and in this case another option would be vote to close.

4. How is a participant supposed to find out that his or her post has been flagged as VLQ? And in the case that multiple posts s/he has written have been flagged as VLQ?

Let's take me, as a guinea pig. On November 14 an exasperated reviewer informed me of a problematic pattern in my answers: Word or phrase used to describe a person concerned with self preservation. I didn't understand at the time, but something started to get through my hard skull. I took a good look at what I thought was a model answer and started making a point of following that format. By the time I got another exasperated comment from someone else, on November 24th (https://english.stackexchange.com/a/359975/112436), I had already started working on improving my documentation of single-word, phrase, and idiom request contributions. But it still hadn't sunk in about my answers having landed in the VLQ list until I was called out quite publicly by the first exasperated user (https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/a/9770/112436, see first version of answer in edit history).

And that leads me to...

5. How can contributors learn from their mistakes, if they are not informed in a timely way that they have written posts which have been flagged as VLQ?

Answer 1

It's a great question and I will try my best to answer it based on my experience and some discussions with moderators. I can't find all the references necessary to support this answer. Please feel free to edit or point out my misunderstanding.

1. Yes, both questions and answers are auto-flagged as Very Low Quality (VLQ) if they are not long enough (usually one or two liners) or they contain some words banned by Stack Exchange. As @Catija commented, we don't know what exactly triggers them. You need to note that sometimes an answer that is longer than one or two liners could be flagged, for example, Difference between "get hands on" and "get". I could only guess it was automatically flagged for using too many bold words or many words were being repeated.

2. If you flag an answer as VLQ, it will appear in the moderator's review queue, not the general users' review queue. You can flag it when you are convinced that a post is flaggable as low-quality, but you need to note that moderators don't approve VLQ flags as frequently as NAA (Not an Answer) flags.

   2.2. I never flag a post as VLQ after several of my flags were declined by moderators 10 months ago. The comment from moderator was along the lines of "Please downvote an answer instead of flagging it as VLQ". In my opinion, downvotes work better than flagging as VLQ as VLQ is very hard to define. Related ELU Meta post: Why was my VLQ flag rejected? and Disputing flag reviews and Why did moderators decline most of my flags even if they were helpful?

   2.3. I always try to make a comment to VLQ posts that answer a question. If they don't, I just either downvote or vote to delete them. Sometimes users respond to my comment, but more often than not, they don't. Also, I aggressively edit a VLQ post which answers a question. When you flesh it out with some links and examples, you can upvote it. The latest VLQ post I edited. Not only can you get the VLQ post out of the review queue, but also you help other users get more upvotes.

3. You can vote to close only questions while you can flag both of them as VLQ.

4. I don't think there is a way for users to find out their posts have been auto-flagged. But experienced users should know their posts should be long enough with supporting links and references. Just inserting a link can flesh out your answer by several tens of words. The best to avoid the flag is write a post relatively long enough.

5. As explained above, you can pay attention to those comments and try to write a post with research and references. If you keep that in mind, you don't have to worry about this flag.

Answer 2

Users never see flags on their own posts, although I suppose that, if you have access to the relevant review queues then it may be possible to find that your own post has been flagged. I don't know if the system actually checks for that in what it presents for review.

I'm going to deal with Question 6, which you didn't ask: How do I avoid flags in the first place?

The best way of avoiding flags is to follow the guidance:

• The Stack Exchange model

• How to ask a good question

  • How to stay on-topic
  • What not to ask
  • Don't flood the site with questions
• How to write a good answer
  • How to reference others' material

Each of those links has a sidebar with more information, all of which is relevant.

You may find that users (including moderators, perhaps) will occasionally point out how your posts might be improved in order to help the site and avoid flags and their consequences. Take the advice; it's meant well. You may find that people simply downvote. While a reason for that is more difficult to diagnose if there isn't an accompanying comment, take some time to consider your post in the light of the help pages, and see what might be improved.

But, if you follow the guidance about posts, you should find that downvotes are rare and flags are even rarer.